Debate split from God is Indescribable

[Guest HIS girl]

We have the drugs or hypnosis as external evidence for the natural explanation but nowt for the spiritual explanation.

Spiritual rebirth is an individual thing. That's why it's often said here on WB that, God KNOWS the heart. Man does not. Man can talk the talk but often misses the mark to truely walk the talk. Only God knows the true Spiritual state of ones being and that is something that drugs will never reveal.

It is something that you will have to experience once you have a True relationship with Christ as He will reveal Himself to you. Drugs will not and never will do this and to think otherwise is dillusional thinking.

Those closest to you who knew the 'old' man can verify that a change has happened. The utter true condition is transparent only to God tho.

The 'spiritual' level that some other religions proclaim to reach is usually under some form of trance which is directly occultic. It is born of a deceiving spirit , the realm which lies within the principalities of darkness.

[DozyBen]

Hi HIS girl

I found your post interesting but quite hard to follow.

I would agree spiritual rebirth is an individual thing. As a very basic starting point it requires the person to belive they have a spirit that can die and be reborn. What evidence to you have of possessing a spirit that can die and reborn? This is a simple starting point that needs addressing before looking at any further claims you've made. You can't see it, touch it, or feel it. If it exists in another dimension, well we've already covered that.

The key to whether drugs and hypnosis can produce an experience of the spiritual realm for an individual is in the interpretation. You would interpret the experiences as a journey to the spiritual realm because that's what you believe they are. I am not calling you a liar. What I am saying is that there is no evidence that your experience is actually of the spirital realm because those experiences can be replicated by hypnosis or drugs. In other words, when we experience the same thing but have different interpretations, we need to find a consistent explanation. Drugs or hypnosis is a consistent explanation but a journey to the spiritual realm is not. It is not a matter of delusion, rather an eyes wide open matter of evidence and reasoning.

There is no physical difference between the experience you claim is communicating with Christ and the occultic trances of other religions. To a neutral observer how to tell the difference? I agree with you that the hundreds of other religions have most likely made an error of interpretation but I also claim you have most likely made an error of interpretation. This is just simple consistency of thought.

Catch you later. I've got to go back to work. :-(

[nebula]

I don't get what your point is though.

Yes, I can see that we have been contemplating on two entirely different planes. I'm still trying to figure out how to relate to your plane. My apologies for failing in this matter.

[nebula]

I'd need to understand what you mean by experience with the spiritual realm in order to rightly discount it. I don't mind using the experiences of others as evidence for believing something however the common religious experiences can be induced by hypnosis or drugs.

Unfortunately, your statement here shows me that you are taking a close-minded approach to your seeking. Clearly, you have set your experience as a limitation. A true seeker will explore all possibilities, no matter how obscure. Even in science, in order to verify a theory will set up an experiment with an alternative hypothesis as a premise as a means of ascertaining with certainty that the alternative fails to produce a positive result. If in your search you discount the unexporable, in your mind, right off the bat, then you can not rightly say you have made a true search.

As for your claim that "religious experience" is discounted because such can be induced by hypnosis and drugs, I have never been hypnotized and I have never taken mind-altering drugs. And as long as you keep regarding God as a psychosis, you will never learn anything.

[Guest HIS girl]

Hi HIS girl

I found your post interesting but quite hard to follow.

I would agree spiritual rebirth is an individual thing. As a very basic starting point it requires the person to belive they have a spirit that can die and be reborn. What evidence to you have of possessing a spirit that can die and reborn? This is a simple starting point that needs addressing before looking at any further claims you've made. You can't see it, touch it, or feel it. If it exists in another dimension, well we've already covered that.

The key to whether drugs and hypnosis can produce an experience of the spiritual realm for an individual is in the interpretation. You would interpret the experiences as a journey to the spiritual realm because that's what you believe they are. I am not calling you a liar. What I am saying is that there is no evidence that your experience is actually of the spirital realm because those experiences can be replicated by hypnosis or drugs. In other words, when we experience the same thing but have different interpretations, we need to find a consistent explanation. Drugs or hypnosis is a consistent explanation but a journey to the spiritual realm is not. It is not a matter of delusion, rather an eyes wide open matter of evidence and reasoning.

There is no physical difference between the experience you claim is communicating with Christ and the occultic trances of other religions. To a neutral observer how to tell the difference? I agree with you that the hundreds of other religions have most likely made an error of interpretation but I also claim you have most likely made an error of interpretation. This is just simple consistency of thought.

Catch you later. I've got to go back to work. :-(

You are wrong DBen,

Drugs do not and will never reach a Spiritual state (in the sense of Christianity.). Drugs have a mind altering affect where you believe you have reached a level of spirituality but is in fact an altered state of awareness in the drugged sense. Spirituality in the Heavenly realm is without drugs and is in the natural state. A transforming and renewing of your mind. Quite different. The teachings from the Bible and the Holy Spirit do this - not drugs.

The occultic persausion is of a spiritual nature but from the principalities of darkness. Satan and his henchmen. Voodoo, Eastern religions and mysticism are all connected to the occultic realm. We do not battle with the flesh but the Spiritual realm. The altered state of consciousness in these fields are usually born out of a trance - firstly by performing some ritual, a drink, drugs, incantations etc to open up the door to the darkside. These are negative spiritual activities.

The proof DBen is an individual thing like I said, you have to experience the rebirth for yourself through Christ's Salvation. It's free. I have very Spiritual connections with Jesus in my 'quiet' study times, where I cry spotaneously and I feel the Spiritual connection where everything else is forgotten and it's just me and Jesus for that point in time. To another Christian, their Spiritual connection in their quiet time maybe vastly different to mine. That's why I say it's an individual thing. There is no one formula and can't be fathomed in terms of scientific testing. Won't work.

[nebula]

All I'm saying is a purposeless universe is not necessarily an unhappy one.

Cache -

I think of the books written, the lectures presented, and the songs written all searching for meaning in life, all struggling with the question of suffering, all looking for an answer to purpose.

Then I see your explanation: that all everyone needs is to find pleasure in what they do, and this will solve everything.

Well - golly, why don't we forget psychology degrees and counceling centers and just create pleasure camps for all hurting people, and all their struggles will go away because we made everybody happy.

This mindset I find incomprehensible.

[nebula]

Cache, I lived most of my life struggling with chronic depression, and I can tell you that happiness, although it feels good, is nothing more than an emotion.

Before I realized that "my struggles" as I called them were the symptoms of chronic depression, I tried to dead with it by shoving down my "sad feelings" and focusing on what made me feel happy. Sure, it got me through step by step, but it never dealt with the problem. Once I discovered my condition, I quit focusing on my emotions - stopped trying to feel happy all the time - and focused on dealing with the source. It cost me to do so, that is, I fell back into major depressive episodes, but this time when I got through it, on the other side I was stronger. No, I was not more happy, but I was more at peace. And I can tell you with assurity that this sense of peace far outweighs happiness.

People who seek happiness as their goal in life often engage in destructive behavior thinking it will make them fell better - drug addiction, amassing wealth for oneself (at the cost of friendships, the welfare of others, family relations), becoming a people-pleaser in order to be liked, etc.

No, happiness is fleeting. It's a goal that can crash down way too easy.

But as for your belief that finding meaning will bring happiness? No, it won't. Sure, there is a happiness that is associated with finding meaning. But that happiness, too, is fleeting. Once you found "your happiness" in meaning, where do you go from there? Sure, you can answer something like you live out that meaning and this will bring happiness. But I am saying it won't. Happiness may be a side effect that will occur, but anything can happen that will crash down whatever happiness you feel in any moment.

Now you may be one of those people who is genetically prone towards feeling happy more than someone like me, so finding ways to be happy might be easy for you, and thus you can say that this is all you need out of life. But if you were to spend some time with those who don't obtain feeling happy so easy, you might actually see how getting them to feel happy isn't the answer. Unfortunately, this is something that has to be experienced in order to be understood.

For how do you explain someone who sacrifices their own personal happiness in order to make life better for someone else? If happiness is the goal, then you can't.

I am not sure this makes sense to you, but this is how it is.

[DozyBen]

HISgirl

We're not going to get much further I don't think. You've just stated I'm wrong and repeated earlier statements about Christianity being right and other religions being wrong. You haven't answered the vital question of how a neutral observer discerns between any one of the other religions and Christianity in terms of being right. After all, all religions claim to be the truth. Equal experiences, equal claims to truth and yet somehow a person should choose Christianity, I don't see how that fits.

Still, the discussion has been fun nonetheless, so thanks for that.

nebula

I don't discount religious experiences. My point was that they can be replicated in other ways and that casts doubt on the supernatural explanation.

In your first paragraph: "A true seeker will explore all possibilities" and then later "If you discount the unexplorable, in your mind, right off the bat". I consider myself a true seeker and therefore (in your words) I explore. However as a true seeker, I must discount the unexplorable because an explorer cannot explore the unexplorable by definition. Which means you've got something muddled in what you were trying to say. Basically, I will consider all logical argument and all evidence. However, I won't settle on a particular point where there are multiple explanations until I have something to sway one way or the other.

Your point about setting up alternative hypotheses is a very good point. People claimed lots of experiences which they interpreted in religious ways. Some scientist comes along and says 'I reckon these experiences have a natural explanation so I'm going to ply some people with drugs, some I'm going to hypnotize and I'll sample religious and non-religious types.' Sure enough, once the experiments were complete, the religious reported religious experiences on the drugs and under hypnosis and the non-religious reported experiences without a religious explanation. Your underlying religious certainty sways you to give your experiences a religious interpretation. I, on the other hand, am simply not making any interpretation but rather looking around for some way to explain them from other people. No one set of explanations have cast enough doubt on the others except the 'there's nothing supernatural' answer. This is because it fits as an explanation of these experiences and as an explanation of how planes, cars, thermodynamics and everything else works.

[Guest HIS girl]

HISgirl

After all, all religions claim to be the truth. Equal experiences, equal claims to truth and yet somehow a person should choose Christianity, I don't see how that fits.

Still, the discussion has been fun nonetheless, so thanks for that.

DBen,

Some people, no matter how much they hear the Truth and reject the Truth, are in serious danger of never having the Truth. Having longwinded discussions that go nowhere just for the "fun" of it serves NO PURPOSE. I'd rather have a cup of tea and a good lie down. : )

You either hear the Truth and accept it or hear the Truth and reject it.

It's as simple as that.

[nebula]

DozyBen -

If I were to translate what you said it would be:

"My mind is already made up - there is no supernatural, and anything you say I can find a natural explanation for."

So I have no idea what it is you believe you are seeking.

Anyway, now that this thread has been successfully hijacked from the original topic and it obviously is running nowhere, I'm taking my leave . . . unless someone wants to go back to discussing the video.